Before No 4 Privet Drive
by Mellisent Trimarchi
Summary: Very often, the end of one story begins another. This is the story of life before No. 4 Privet Drive, the story that comes to an end just as the story of the boy with the lightning-shaped scar begins to unfold. This is the story of a friendship that ends in betrayal; a story of a love that transcended everything. This is the Marauders.
1. Prologue

**A/N: This small prologue chapter is mostly just for fun. If you're the impatient sort, you can skip right to Chapter one. I won't mind. (Well actually, I wouldn't even know.) Please review :)**

Prologue

Sirius Black had once emanated a powerful aura of mesmerizing charm, his soul filled with wild, reckless abandon. He had once believed himself invincible, immortal.

He was no longer that man.

His grey-blue eyes were dark and hollow and empty. They were no longer stormy, no longer filled with a terrifying icy fury that seemed to make the ground tremble beneath him. His rage and anger at Wormtail's betrayal and Voldemort's heinous, despicable act had ebbed away, replaced by the cold, metallic feeling of guilt, regret and failure, coiling ever tighter around his heart like a basilisk. More than two lives had ended that dark August night. One man's soul had been sold to the devil, the another ripped apart into tiny shreds and scattered amongst the stars.

It seemed as though the entire universe was collapsing. The world was collapsing, and for the first time in his life, Sirius Black did not want to fight it. He did not want to pick up the shattered pieces and glue them back together again. He did not want to clear the wreckage and rebuild the beautiful house along the coast. All he wanted to do was to fade, disappear, into that cold black nothingness that had engulfed both James and Lily in one unforgiving gulp.

"In the end, it all came down to _this_," He said bitterly, looking at the tiny, bundled up figure cradled in Hagrid's massive arms. They stood amongst ruins of what had once beautiful, surrounded by smouldering rubble, the wreckage a painful reminder of everything he had failed to do. "Who would've known? The marauders, reduced to ashes and dust."

The little bundle was all that was left of James and Lily. James, with his twinkling eyes and lopsided grin. Lily, with her flaming hair and brilliant green eyes. They were gone now. Everything was gone. Nothing would ever be the same. They once had the whole blue canvas of sky and stars, eternity stretched out beyond them, the strength of the mountains and the volume of all the seas combined in their souls.

Tonight, they had this little boy and his lightning shaped scar, and nothing more. Tonight, Peter Pettigrew would die, and perhaps, if Heaven allowed, he too, would perish in his last noble act.

"Take good care of him, Hagrid."Sirius Black blinked resolutely. He wouldn't cry, not now, not ever. He could not afford to give Voldemort that final triumph.

With an ear-splitting crack, he disappeared into the night, and with him, an era of glorious heroes came to a tragic end.


	2. Chapter One

**A/N: I hope you enjoy this, and please review! It would mean so much to me :)**

**Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, and I don't own Harry Potter. I wish I did, though.**

Chapter One

It was a truth universally acknowledged that James Potter was not the kind of eleven-year old you wanted unleashed and allowed to run free in a train station crammed with thousands of innocent civilians. Well- truth be told, James was not the kind of eleven-year old you wanted unleashed anywhere.

His mother, upon realizing he was not, as she had expected, standing obediently behind her, entered a state of panic verging on hysteria. "He was standing right here just a minute ago!" She looked around the crowded train platform, searching desperately for a glimpse of his unruly black hair. Instead, she was met with the markedly less pleasing sight of her husband fiddling discretely with his wand, completely oblivious to the fact that his son was nowhere in sight.

"Your son has gone missing," She said, her voice rising to an octave shrill enough to break glass. "_Do_ something, Francis, don't just _stand there_!"

Her husband flashed her a look of annoyance. He was trying to receive a wand message from the minister of magic without drawing any muggle attention, and his wife's ravings were not making it any easier. "_Eleanor", _He growled through gritted teeth, "You know what happens when I miss a code orange message from Donston." As the Minister of Internal Affairs and one of the most influential wizards of his time, Francis Potter was one of the few people in the country on a first name basis with the Minister of Magic. His influence, however, was useless against the provoked maternal instincts of his wife. He tried to ignore the death glare she was shooting at him and focused his attention instead on the silvery wisp issuing from the tip of his wand. "Just give me _thirty seconds_."

Eleanor huffed angrily. "_You_ know what happens if you leave your son alone for more than thirty seconds."

Francis Potter was no longer listening- not to her at least. The silvery wisp billowing out of his wand took the shape of the minister's severe, imposing face. It was not a face many dared to ignore, even to placate irate wives. "Mr. Potter, this is a code orange emergency, we need you at the ministry immediately." The image turned orange and blinked out.

Mr. Potter sighed and turned to his wife, running a hand through his immaculately combed hair. "I need to go, you make sure he doesn't get into any trouble_. _Just use a _sweepsearch_ spell if you don't manage to find him after awhile." He said in a low voice, pecking her on the cheek as he turned to leave. "Don't look at me like that, I hate having to do this as much as you do- I had a whole 'be responsible' speech planned out."

Eleanor sighed, but couldn't help the sides of her lips from twitching upwards. "So _that_ was what you were practicing in front of the mirror yesterday night."

John Potter blushed and straightened his tie self-consciously. "Well, I'd better be going- try not to let it reach the ministry... Donston already wants to send James to an adolescent reformatory as it is. That incident at the museum- oomph!" Eleanor had leaned forward and planted a kiss on his lips. They were both smiling now. She watched the tall figure of her husband disappearing slowly into the crowd before setting out in search of her son.

After a few minutes of dodging round throngs of people and their speeding trolleys, she gave up and sat down at a bench. "Might as well wait for the scream," she said, surreptitiously casting a massage charm on her feet. These blasted muggle high heels were more formidable than they looked.

A few minutes later, the catastrophe Eleanor had been expecting occurred, albeit on a scale much larger than she had deemed her son capable of causing. This was, in itself, quite a feat because she wasn't, by any means, one of those mothers who underestimated their sons. _I'm getting a little too_ _old for this_, she thought, sighing resignedly. An important point to note, is the fact that she was only thirty-six years old. She hitched up her skirt, and rushed to the battle scene.

Feathers exploded in a million different directions like fireworks as trunks morphed into large squawking parrots. Trolleys veered wildly to avoid the growing flock of birds, careening into walls and old tottering women. A crowd had gathered around, some them guffawing loudly, some of them still screaming.

"What's happening?!" Bellowed the security guard, completely bewildered and not very amused. A particularly large lump of bird poop landed on his head, silencing him momentarily while he scrambled desperately for tissue paper. Trolleys rose to the air, levitating above thousands of stunned faces like ceiling fixtures. They then proceeded to dance a little jig in the air much to the amusement of the onlookers.

"Merlin," breathed Eleanor, "It's a good thing I touched up on that mind-wipe spell." She launched into action, waving her wand in the air frenziedly. When she was sure every suitcase had been returned to their respective owners, she wiped clean the memories of the past ten minutes from the minds of every muggle unfortunate enough to have witnessed the incident. Herds of baffled commuters circled the area for a few minutes, wondering what it was they were about to, trying in vain to remember things they had already forgotten they knew.

Mrs. Potter now rounded on her son. "You deserve a long lecture right now- unfortunately, you're running late as it is and I don't want the train to leave without you," She marched along the train station at a blistering pace, dragging the lanky black-haired boy along by the scruff of his neck. "Never, ever, do that ever again, do you understand? What if something had gone wrong?"

"Aww, mum, nothing could've gone wrong." James, at eleven, had already mastered his trademark cocky grin, much to the consternation of his mother.

"James, _anything_ could go wrong. _Never _forget that."

"Alright, mum, enough with the death glare already. Your eyeballs look like they're gonna fall off."

Eleanor sighed and couldn't help but laugh. His sparkling, gold-flecked hazel eyes and the endearing dimple on his left cheek made it extremely difficult to stay mad at him for long. "What? Only my eyeballs? I swear, I'm going to lose every strand of my hair before I'm thirty, no thanks to you and the kind of stress you put me under."

"I'll buy you Gordon's Magical Hair-Growth Shampoo for Christmas."

"Couldn't possibly use _that_. It's for middle aged wizards with beer bellies. I might grow a beer belly by accident."

"Like Dad, you mean." James said, grinning. "I'll send _him _that for Christmas then. Speaking of which, where _is _he?"

"James! Your father doesn't have a _beer belly,_" Eleanor said, swatting at her son, huffing angrily. "He doesn't even _drink _beer! And he isn't _middle-aged_ either."

…

"Just in case this turns out to be a big joke, I'd like to say before I end up too dead to speak- this is a brilliant prank." They stood in front of the brick wall marked 'platform nine and three quarters'. James eyed it suspiciously from a distance.

Eleanor Potter rolled her eyes. "Thank you for the undeserved compliment. Now, you'd better go before the whistle goes-" A faint train whistle blew in the distance as if to prove her point.

"Bye mom," James said, his eyes shining with excitement. "Don't miss me too much,"

"I _will_, whether you like it or not." Eleanor Potter felt a sharp stab of sorrow as she watched her son pass through the platform wall the way she had done, so many years ago. Immediately, she wanted to rush through the gateway, drag him out and hug him close to her forever. She forced down the lump in her throat and blinked fiercely. "Oh James..." She croaked, her voice cracking with emotion, "_Please_ try to stay out of trouble." She shook her head, realizing how absurd that sentence sounded even before she finished it. She knew her son well enough to know that he couldn't keep himself out of trouble if his life depended on it.

Little did she know that this innocuous thought would turn out so chillingly true thirteen years into the future.

**A/N: Thanks so much for reading this, I'll be putting up new chapters (and a prologue) soon, so keep your eyes peeled :) Pleease review... I will love you more than James loved Lily. Well, maybe a little less. But still, _review _:))) **


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